So, spent some time with WriteRoom. I’ve never used the app before, so I don’t know its history or what it was capable of before 4.0, but I have used almost every well-designed plain-text writing app there is out there, so take my feedback with that context in mind.
Initial impressions
Very sleek and tactile drafting app. Even though it supports markdown, I wouldn’t call it a markdown editor (yet), but very much a writing app, one that gets you from Open → Write in zero time.
What I love
- Generates blank page out of the box when you open (if no other documents are open). Blank page + blinking cursor staring at you, so easy to get started.
- The DEC theme is really well done. Makes me wish it was a terminal app so that I could have multiple panes open with multiple documents
- Speed and agility, writing is really a super-tactile experience with this editor
- The mini-map scroller and the ESC-to-zoom features are great for navigation, and you can avoid a separate TOC feature
- Typewriter mode is great. Usually I default to Top position in apps that support it; with Writeroom, the fixed top position feels set a little too high ATM (would love to see a little more context above). I also love that it disengages fixed position on scroll and doesn’t re-engage until I start writing again.
What I’d love to see
- Keyboard shortcut support for quick-inserting dates and current time (ISO dates in particular)
- Indentation character selector → currently defaults to 2 spaces, but I use TAB in all other documents
- More mouse avoidance:
- Ways to move text around
- Paragraphs up/down
- Reorder list items
- Maybe outline aware (move children)? Maybe independent? Discussions with other apps show people want different things
- Autocomplete brackets and auto-wrap selection in brackets
- Ways to move caret between headings. Maybe if zoom-out mode was a toggle instead of needing to hold ESC down, it could be good for keyboard navigation?
- Keyboard shortucts to show/hide additional elements (mini-map, line numbers, sticky headings)
- A satisfying progress bar to hit a word-count goal would be super nice. Maybe a timer, too.
- An iOS/iPad version
Things that make me think
Markdown support. I love that it’s there. I love that it highlights syntax, love that it supports checkboxes and that I can toggle them with a shortcut.
I’m not sure about the hiding markdown option. On one hand, I appreciate it’s there if people want a clean-looking document; but I personally hate the exploding aspect of it. Would very much prefer to see a WYSIWYG presentation the same way Bike does it.
This has been a feature request in the Obsidian forums since forever, and recent discussions around Shiny Frog’s new markdown editing app Lettera seem like that’s what other users want too, because there doesn’t seem to be an app on the market that does this well. OTOH, Writeroom a writing app, not really a document/styling editor and viewer. And I guess WYSIWYG comes with its own set of problems. Would love to read how you see it.
Bugs?
- If I select a chunk of text and press TAB, it will delete the entire selection instead of indenting, even if I have a whole line selected
- De-indenting with Shift+TAB doesn’t seem to work
- In 404, the DEC appearance controls (glow, curvature, beam) are very slow to respond, and seem to have pre-determined positions (0, center, full) instead of full-spectrum values
Overall, super excited to see where you take this. And yes, this was written with WriteRoom